The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors. 2nd ed.

Emily Walters Gregor is a graduate student in 20th-century American
literature and an ESL writing tutor at the University of Minnesota.

As the preface to this updated second edition of The Thesis and the Book
emphasizes, the pressure on emerging scholars to turn their thesis into
a work suitable for publication at an academic press is now greater than
ever.

Like the first edition, this second edition articulates the need for
dissertation writers to review their research critically and thoroughly
in order to transform it from a narrow, specialized piece with a small
intended audience to a work with broader appeal, impact, and influence.
The chapters, each written by academics and editors, provide practical
and specific suggestions for changes to the dissertation manuscript,
including removing excessive quotations and reformatting citations and
footnotes. There is advice on submitting the edited dissertation to
publishing houses, from formatting the cover letters to choosing the
right publisher.

The second edition focuses more attention than its predecessor on
communication between author and publisher and preparing a manuscript
for submission. The new articles also focus more attention on ensuring
politically correct language and appropriate computer formatting.
Although the book’s primary audience is recent dissertation writers,
the advice it provides on editing for audience and communicating with
publishers would be useful for non-fiction or beginning writers as well.